Practical Guide to AI for Designers

With the advent of consumer facing Large Language Models (LLMs) Artificial Intelligence is no longer the mysterious black box it used to be. Instead, it’s become a toolkit with a lot of potential for UX designers willing to embrace it. If you’ve been eyeing these new tools from the sidelines, it’s time to jump in.

AI is reshaping how products are designed, developed, and experienced. Here are a few ways AI might impact your product:

Enhanced Personalization: AI algorithms analyze user behavior to deliver hyper-personalized experiences. Some examples include Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” playlist or Netflix’s recommendations.

Predictive Insights: tools powered by AI can help anticipate user needs, reducing friction and enhancing engagement.

Automation of Mundane Tasks: these tools can streamline tedious workflows and add important details like design spec accessibility annotations or resizing assets for a plethora of screen sizes.

Competitive Edge: designers integrating AI into their workflows are setting new benchmarks—staying relevant means staying informed

Common Use Cases

When to use a tool is just as important is how you use that tool. It's important to keep the new developments of AI in their own space—it's a fantastic new tool to solve our very real problems.

Brainstorming design ideas

• Generating fresh ideas for UI layouts, features, or user flows—this can help provide the foundation to level up your design strategy and flex the innovation muscle

• Prompt example: suggest user onboarding flow ideas for a mobile fitness app targeting beginners

Creating user personas

• Getting inside the head and heart of our users is the starting point for all great UX design. Leveraging AI can help define personas based on target audience data and/or industry standards

• Prompt example: generate three user personas for a telehealth app with an audience of elderly users in mind

Writing UX copy

• If you're like me, you probably other think all language deployed to the design. AI can help draft microcopy (think CTAs), error messages, or even onboarding instructions that align with the product's tone

• Prompt example: write friendly error messages for an online appointment scheduling application

Planning user research

• It's always a plus for designers to mix it up with researchers. Remember, research can be a very powerful tool to leverage with the aim of creating user-centered design. AI can help develop research questions, surveys, or usability testing scripts.

• Prompt example: what usability testing questions should I ask for a new e-commerce checkout flow?

How to write effective prompts

The better input you provide, the better output you will receive from your friendly AI LLM. Leveraging a prompt framework as a starting point for your project can help you drive better outcomes in concert with your counterpart.

Role: specify the expert role for this AI.

• you are an expert UX designer…

Task: clearly state the action verb and some relevant content

• create an agenda of key topics to discuss…

Format: define the desired output format

• present as a bulleted list with the following…

Context: provide critical background information behind your request—what's the purpose and goal?

• we're preparing for a cross-functional design meeting…

Question: tell your counterpart to ask any follow up questions for potential missing details

• please ask any questions that might…

Here's an example prompt I used in real life!

• You are an expert UX designer. Your task is to host monthly meetings with a group to inter-disciplinary designers. The design team was recently reorganized and is looking for opportunities to collaborate. Provide 5 meeting topics with relevant information in a table format.

There's a famous quote I love from my former field of urban planning and design: "First, we shaped the cities. Now, the cities shape us."

Here's to a bright future of shaping and being shaped by the capable new tools at our disposal.